La Liga president Javier Tebas has offered his thoughts on Lionel Messi’s shock summer exit from Barcelona and reckons his departure “wasn’t a financial decision.”
Barca stunned the football world on August 6 by announcing the captain wouldn’t be staying “despite having reached an agreement and the clear intention of both parties to sign a new contract today.”
The brief statement from the Catalan giants blamed “Spanish LaLiga regulations on player registration” for Messi’s departure, but Tebas says he knows “with certainty” that it “wasn’t a financial decision.”
Tebas says Laporta and Barca had initially been in favor of La Liga’s investment deal with private equity firm CVC until a very late change of heart.